Huynh.io

$50 in Ho Chi Minh City

The buying power of the USD in Vietnam is fantastic. For this blog post I will assume a conversion rate of 20K VND to 1 USD for easy conversion. You can easily get by with less than $10 USD (~200K VND ). It's a huge city and if you want you

Surviving the Days Leading Up to Tết in Ho Chi Minh City

Tết is the Vietnamese Lunar New year. It happens around the end of January and is based off of the lunar calendar. I specifically chose to come to Vietnam during this season to get a taste of what Tết is like. Boy was I surprised. This is what it's like

Living on the Edge at 20mph

For my first week in Ho Chi Minh City, I used the Grab App which is like Uber, a cab calling service. What's unique is that I can also call motorbikes (xe ôm). The xe ôm are significantly cheaper than cabs, but, more importantly, it exposed me to the sights,

Bedtime is Overrated

It has been a week since I landed in Vietnam and I think I've dialed in my my schedule. I work at an amazing, high intensity startup that is based in San Jose, California and Portland, Oregon. One of the many allures of the startup was the ability to work

coffee

Take Your Time With That Coffee

Vietnamese people hustle. Hard. At all hours of the day and night, I'll see people working. They'll be peddling a bike powered wooden cart while hawking bootlegged DVDs and children toys, delivering fridges on a 125CC moped, and professionals of all ages running about from one work place to the

Lost Luggage in Dubai?!

It's been a long time since I last posted. I don't have a good excuse. I just slipped. But now I'm back with something a little different. I'm going write smaller short blog posts and include video logs of my life experiences. Some of it will be programming related, some

ios

React Native Animations

React.Animated I recently had to create some animations in React Native. Their animation library is relatively new and not fully documented yet. I had a hard time learning the API, so I am going to document what I've learned so you can have another resource in your learning process.

ios

My First Baby is an Ugly One

I've wanted to release an iOS app ever since my freshman year as a Computer Science undergraduate. I think everyone in the computer science field wanted to release an app or game, at some point in their career. I never created a meaningful iOS app during my undergraduate career. I

soylent

Radio Silence: End of the Soylent Run

Hi Guys, Sorry for not updating in awhile. I've been swamped with work, school, physical therapy, and various other life demands. It's been 3-4 weeks since my last post. During that time, I've been mainly off Soylent. Soylent was easy to fit into my lunch schedule; however, I found that

soylent

Soylent Day 44-50: Slipping off that Soylent

Last week was not a good week for my Soylent regimen. Wasted Soylent I started off the last 7 days with a bad batch of Soylent. I had made a batch of Soylent the Friday before the start of the last 7 days and left it in my company's refridgerator.

soy

Soylent Day 37 - 43: Normal Days Until The B Day

The first half of this past week was uneventful. I was chugging Soylent for lunch, eating regular dinners, and drank plenty of beers. It was pleasant. My work productivity, energy levels, and weight were fairly consistent. My Birthday Day 1 My birthday was this past weekend. I'm not a fan

soylent

Soylent Day 30 - 36: Beers for Days

It's great to be back on normal foods for dinner. I feel like I've been stressing this a lot, but it is a huge deal for me. It makes social logistics simple. I don't stress about food during my dates or hangouts because I know I can be flexible with

soylent

Soylent Day 23 - 29: Easy Week and Little Gains

It's been a really fast week. It's probably because I'm back to a normal food for dinner. I didn't catch myself struggling with food temptations during the past week. My week consists of two main meals. I have Soylent for lunch and, if I am hungry, a pre bed snack.

soylent

Soylent Day 17 to 22 - A Rough Week and a Great Finish

I restarted my Soylent regimen on Tuesday, September 2nd. Today is the September 7th. These past 6 days have been trying psychologically. Energy for Days My work life has been great. My energy and productivity levels are consistently high. There is a Capital One run Peet's coffee shop on my

soylent

Soylent Day 16 - A Change of Pace

Today has been an uneventful day. I discovered last night that today is Labor day and that I had the off. There goes my structured work day. I slept until noon, ran a few errands, and vegged out. I'm not used to having an unplanned day. I perform my best

soylent

Soylent Day 10 to 15 - Being Social is the Bane of Soylent

It's been 5 days since my last post. I promised I'd write on Friday, but I had a date Friday and a group date on Saturday so I didn't get a chance to update this blog until Sunday. It's not such an issue since the last 5 days had one

Soylent Day 9 - Mouthful of Eggs and a Fistful of Soylent

I really shouldn't read fiction before bed. Similar to Sunday night, I stayed up until 2:30AM reading. I only managed to pry myself from the fictional world because of an egg induced sleep. During my reading, I walked to the fridge to pour myself some water water and realized

Soylent Day 8 - Getting Back on the Horse

If you've been following my blog, you'll know that I've been a bad boy this past weekend. To make things worse, I got absorbed with some manga reading and didn't sleep until 3AM. At 8 AM my phone alarm rang. I unlocked my phone, set an alarm for 8:15AM,

Soylent Day 7 - Weekend Recap

I've been cheating from Friday till today. It's unavoidable because of social requirements. I had a date Friday, my mother's birthday dinner and my dance crew's 1 year anniversary party on Saturday, and I was slightly hungover today. Okay, the last one was a pretty weak excuse. I don't think

Soylent Day 6 - More Cheating and Frenzy

Today is my mom's birthday and the 1 year anniversary a dance crew I am in. I'll be out all day, so today's post will be bundled up with Sunday's. Look forward to tomorrow's post guys. I think this might become the norm, bundling the weekend's post into one. Cheers.

soylent

Soylent Day 5 - Cheating is the Norm

I had a boiled egg last night after my last Soylent meal. I'll have to do this for another week. It's the only way I'm going to finish all of the soft boiled eggs from last Wednesday. The egg white is not didn't taste great cold, but the yoke tasted

soylent

Soylent Day 4 - Stumble and Recovery

Wednesday is billiards night. So, after publishing last night's post, I biked to my usual billiards hall. I arrived around 10:30PM, played a few games, and drank a Guinness. Guinness has roughly the same amount of calories as Bud Light, but tastes a ton better. Surprised?. After the first

soylent

Soylent Day 3 - Getting into the Swing of Things

It was easy waking up today. I was pleasantly surprised because I had a really hard time falling asleep last night. I mentioned in yesterday's post that I was pretty tired, but, when it came time to fall asleep, I couldn't. I turned off the lights at 1AM and didn’

soylent

Soylent Day 2 - Heavy Eyes and Wired Mind

I woke at 8AM and was exhausted. I'm not sure what caused it because I went to bed at 12:30AM and feel asleep quickly. That gives me roughly 7-7.5 hours of sleep. I don't think it's caused by the sudden Soylent diet; I've only had Soylent for one

soylent

Soylent Day 1 - Pleasantly Surprised

I woke up today feeling absolutely drained. This not because of Soylent though. I was drained because I was in NYC all weekend, partied a little too hard, and stayed up a later than usual to write the Soylent Day 0 post. I walked into my office at 9:15AM